After our successful photo trip to Shoshone Falls to see a moonbow in its mist (see the previous post), we headed to the Mesa Falls Scenic Byway to see if we could photograph a moonbow in Upper Mesa Falls along the Mesa Falls Scenic Byway in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest in eastern Idaho. We had heard from a forest supervisor about a year ago that she already knew that someone had photographed a moonbow in Upper Mesa Falls, so we knew it could happen.
We hadn't modeled the terrain and moon's path ahead of time, so we didn't know where the best vantage point was or when it might happen. We headed to the main observation platform the night of the full moon, Monday, July 3rd. The moon was rising behind a cloud bank along the eastern horizon. As soon as the moon cleared the clouds, its light shot up the canyon making the whole streamcourse glow up to and beyond the Upper Mesa Falls. We saw this moonbow almost as soon as the moonlight set the canyon aglow around midnight. It appeared fairly close to the waterfall itself and progressed toward the waterfall as the moon rose. It soon seemed that the moonbow would be drowned out by the waterfall itself.
We moved to another observation platform to our left and caught sight of another moonbow and watched it as it progressed to the right, toward the waterfall, just like the previous one had done. We left around 2 AM with that moonbow still visible, but getting very close to the waterfall and we presumed that it was about to disappear.
The photo above is of that initial moonbow sighting and is a vertical in order to show the stars in the sky to prove that it was taken at night.
Remember, it's not just a picture, it's a story.
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